A critical assessment of recent trends in Dutch industrial relations

Not availablelabour economics ;

European welfare states in competition

The Maastricht Treaty (1992) has meant an important step forwards in the process of European integration. Not only goods and financial markets, but als labour markets are freed from national barriers. Will this lead to significant increases in migration flows? The differences in wage and unemployment levels between different member states are significant; and the same is rue for differences in what is called socal wage. However, the character of labour services is quite different from that of goods and capital services. It is physically bound to human beings, which means that the cultural factor can be a serious barrier for moving. In order to prevent regional inequality and/or significant migration flows, member states are enforced to make their labour market institutions as competitive as possible. This paper deals with this phenomenon of institutional competition. Results from the field of public scoice and spatial economics are presented. Liberally oriented institutions appear to drive out more conservative or socialist institutions. If the EU srives for a complete poitical integration between all members, where any form of discremination between EU-citizens is forbidden, coordination between the different welfare regimes is necessary. As long as this coordination is not achieved, the country of birth mus continue to play a role in the European welfare regimeinternational economics and trade ;

Psychology for Economists

Orthodox economics focuses on the analysis of the way the economic force or motivation operates, thereby abstracting from the functioning of other primary forces or motivations, such as the social and the psychic motivation. By assuming perfect rationality psychic problems are ignored. This text discusses six approaches in psychology . cognitive, behaviourist, biological, psychodynamic, humanistic and social psychology - to find out what orthodox economics needs in order to extend its analysis with the more realistic idea of imperfect rationality. In this discussion the state of the art of behavioural economics in included.orthodox economics, psychology, behavioural economics, imperfect rationality

Importance of DTM accuracy, precision and acquisition technique for estimating contributing areas of post-fire erosion at the slope and catchment scale

Wildfires are a frequent phenomenon in Portugal, affecting over 300.000 ha in dry years like 2003 and 2005. Directly and/or indirectly, wildfires can strongly enhance the hydrological response and associated sediment losses and, thereby, negatively affect land-use sustainability as well as ecosystem functioning of downstream aquatic habitats. Therefore, the EROSFIRE projects aim at developing a GIS-tool for predicting soil erosion hazard following wildfire and post-fire land management practices. Assessment and modeling of runoff and soil erosion rates critically depends on accurate estimates of the contributing areas. In the case of catchments as well as unbounded erosion plots (arguably, the only practical solution for slope-scale measurements), delineation of contributing area requires a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) with an adequate resolution and accuracy. The DTM that was available for the Colmeal study area (Goís municipality, central Portugal) was that of the 1:25.000 topographic map produced by the Military Geographic Institute. Since this study area involves a rather small experimental catchment of roughly 10 ha and relatively short study slopes of less than 100 m long, two different data acquisition techniques were used to produce high-resolution and high-accuracy DTM. One is aerial photogrammetry, whilst the other is terrestrial laser scanning. To produce a DTM by photogrammetric means, a dedicated digital aerial photography mission was carried out. The images had a pixel size of 10 cm. Manual measurements permitted to measure breaklines and were complemented by automatic measurements. In this way, a DTM in a TIN format was produced. This was further converted to grid format using the ArcGIS software system. Signalized control points allowed obtaining the DTM in the same global reference system as that employed for terrestrial laser scanning. The terrestrial laser scanning was done using a Riegl LMS Z360I, stationed in 8 points within the area to provide a complete coverage. The resulting dense cloud of points was filtered – by the company carrying out the scanning mission - to remove the non-terrain points (in particular vegetation). Several grids of different sizes were produced (0.10 x 0.10, 0.20 x 0.20, 0.50 x 0.50, 1 x 1 and 2 x 2 m2). The proposed work will compare and analyze estimates of contribution areas that were obtained with the two above-mentioned data acquisition techniques and for different spatial resolutions. This will be done for selected slope-scale sediment fences as well as for the outlet of the experimental catchment. In addition, different algorithms available in ArcGIS for TIN-to-grid conversion will be compared, since preliminary results have suggested that these procedures produce markedly different results

Diagnosing risks in new product development

new product development

Gas transport and separation with ceramic membranes. Part I: Multilayer diffusion and capillary condensation

Multilayer diffusion and capillary condensation of propylene on supported γ-alumina films greatly improved the permeability and selectivity. Multilayer diffusion, occurring at relative pressures of 0.4 to 0.8 strongly increased the permeability of 6 times the Knudsen permeability, yielding permeabilities of 3.2 × 10−5 mol/m2-sec-Pa. The occurrence of a maximum in the permeability coincides with blocking of the pore by adsorbate (capillary condensation). This point could be predicted, employing adsorption data and the slit shape form of the pore. Separation factors of 27 were obtained with a N2---N3H6 mixture and a supported γ-alumina film, with C3H6 the preferentially permeating component. This very effective separation is due to pore blocking by adsorbate. The separation factor increased to 85 after modification of the system with magnesia by the reservoir method. However, the permeability of propylene decreased by a factor of 20 to 1.6 × 10−6 mol/m2-sec-Pa

The future of the welfare state : reflections on Rogernomics

In this paper we recognize that reforms of the welfare state can be necessary from an economic point of view. We stress, however, that these reforms also have important social and political dimensions. The social dimensions are conceptualised by using Hofstede''s cultural characteristics. The scores on each of these characteristics can be related to desired characteristics of the welfare state. In a similar way different political views are related to a desired concept of the welfare state. Since consensus is a necessary condition for a successful reform of the welfare state, the reforms should be consistent with the culture of a society and its dominant political view. We apply these insights to the reforms in New Zealand, since these are very radical in nature and have attracted a lot of attention. Hofstede''s scores are used to measure the culture of New Zealand and the political views are derived from election results. Using these measures, we find that the reforms in New Zealand are inconsistent with the culture and the dominant political views of that country. Therefore we expect that a further implementation of the reforms will run into trouble. In order to provide some back-ground, we describe the economic situation in New Zealand and compare it with that of Australia. Since the economic situation of New Zealand does not outperform that of Australia, the favourable developments in New Zealand are not an obvious consequence of the reforms, as it is sometimes claimed. Moreover, we find that income inequalities have increased sharply in New Zealand and that the lower and middle-class incomes did not increase since 1980.mathematical applications;

Gas transport and separation with ceramic membranes. Part II: Synthesis and separation properties of microporous membranes

Non-supported microporous silica (amorphous) and titania thin films were made by the polymeric gel route. The titania system consisted of particles smaller than 5 nm. Reproducible modification of supported γ-alumina films with silica demands a strict control of every modification step. Silica films of 30–60 nm thickness on top of and presumably partly inside the γ-alumina film were realised. The permeabilities of helium and hydrogen through this film are activated, while the propylene permeability was below the detection limit. Separation factors of a H2---C3H6 mixture are larger than 200 at 200 °C with a flux of the preferentially hydrogen of 1.6 × 10−6 mol/m2-sec-Pa. The pores must be of molecular dimensions to realise this (< 1 nm diameter). Preliminary research shows that changes in the synthesis parameters result in higher activation energies and improved separation properties. The relation between synthesis, resulting microstructure and gas separation properties, however, is not yet fully understood

The CIARD RING, an infrastructure for interoperability of agricultural research information services

Creating integrated information services in agriculture giving access and adding value to information residing in distributed sources remains a major challenge. In distributed architectures, value added services by definition interface several information sources / services. Therefore value added services cannot be built without an awareness of what others have done: which sources are available, how to tap into them, how to exploit their semantics. The Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD) Routemap to Information Nodes and Gateways (RING) is a portal offering an interlinked registry of existing information services in agriculture. The CIARD RING covers both information services and sources: in nowadays information architectures, the distinction between the two is very fluid. In the RING, the definition of "service" includes any form of providing information from one server instance (website, mail server, web services, XML archive...) to many clients (browsers, email clients, news readers, harvesters...) The services registered in the RING are described in details and categorized according to criteria that are relevant to the use of the service and its interoperability. The RING categorizes and interlinks the featured services according to criteria such as: standards adopted, vocabulary used, technology used, protocols implemented, level of interoperability etc. In addition, it features detailed instructions on how the registered services can be "interoperated". The vision is that the RING will become the common global technical platform for the community of agricultural information professionals for accessing, sharing and exchanging information through web services. This paper describes how the RING provides an infrastructure for enhancing interoperability of information sources and thus paves the way towards better accessibility of information through value-added and better targeted services

Gas and surface diffusion in modified γ-alumina systems

The transport of pure gases through a microporous membrane is described. The alumina-based membrane (pores 2.5-4 nm) is suitable for Knudsen diffusion separation. To improve the separation factor, interaction with and mobility on the pore wall of one of the gases of a mixture is necessary. To introduce surface diffusion of oxygen and hydrogen, a γ-alumina membrane was impregnated with silver. If temperature and atmosphere are controlled carefully, finely dispersed silver up to 17% by weight can be introduced. At higher loads and under oxidizing conditions, particle growth occurs. In adsorption experiments, little oxygen adsorption on the silver-modified γ-alumina could be detected. This is due to a decrease in accessible surface area of the silver because of particle growth of silver under oxygen. The mobility of hydrogen on the surface was tested by counterdiffusion experiments, of which the theory is given. Hydrogen shows a considerable mobility on the surface at 293 K. At low pressures the flux ratio of hydrogen to nitrogen improved from 3.8 to 8.8. Magnesia was introduced into the γ-alumina membrane to enhance the adsorption and mobility of CO2. It is known that 30% of the CO2 transport on non-modified γ-alumina is surface diffusion. The highest achievable magnesia load was 2.2% by weight. Introduction of magnesia into the γ-alumina surface gives more strong base sites and fewer weak base sites. This results in stronger bonding of CO2 on the surface, but the amount adsorbed is comparable with the amount of CO2 adsorbed on non-modified γ-alumina. The contribution of surface diffusion to the total transport decreases with the introduction of magnesia, as is shown by counterdiffusion. The more strongly bonded CO2 is less mobile, resulting in a smaller surface flux